January 6, Rhode Islander Ken Block, and the Wannabe 2020 Election Heroes
Before I begin, let me recommend this impressive article by historian Rick Perlstein.
Just about 3 years now, we witnessed insurrectionists and rioters achieve something Confederate troops, Nazis, and Communists never could: ransack and raid our nation’s capital. The last time such a thing happened was in 1812, at the hands of the British.
We all know the story of how it happened. We know about Trump’s cynical attempt to stay in power by claiming the 2020 election was stolen. We know the fury that unleashed among his supporters, and how both Trump and his many aiders and abetters stoked that fury and fear leading up to January 6. We know all the extremist groups involved, from the Oath Keepers to the Proud Boys. We know the GOP members of Congress who went along to do the bidding of the White House. We know the Senators who challenged the results — and we know Josh Hawley, who raised his fist to the would-be rioters and then ran from them like a little chicken once they unleashed their misguided wrath.
And we know that 3 years since, many, bred on Trump’s lies and his vast propaganda machine, believe the nonsense that the 2020 election was stolen. Even when officials and experts like Brad Raffensperger and Chris Krebs have continually said the opposite from 2020 to the present.
Our politics right now is filled with too many people who either outright disregard and undermine reality, or offer little to no resistance to those who do (looking at you, Nikki “I Don’t Want to Criticize Trump Too Much” Haley). January 6 is just the worst example of that dangerous trend, and something that the American people will have to pass definitive judgment on in 2024.
Yet unfortunately, that has not occurred within the Republican Party. Instead, Trump and his allies have been emboldened to spout groundless conspiracy theories without any accountability. Like that long-dead Hugo Chavez tried to steal the 2020 election for Biden. Or that January 6 was “an inside job,” or that the people who attacked police officers with bear spray, flagpoles, and other blunt objects were simply “peaceful tourists” and “political prisoners” of the Biden Administration. Back the Blue indeed, Donald. “Blue Lives Matter,” but insurrectionists matter much more it seems.
This level of deceit and manipulation is unheard of in American politics. Of all the many politicians who merely pretend to be public servants, Trump and his friends are the worst of them all. No wonder they ignore the thorny question of how Republicans gained House seats, and won a bunch of contested Senate seats in an election that President Biden rigged. No wonder they ignore the fact that Republicans outperformed even at the state level in 2020. And no wonder they don’t mention that the results of the 2022 midterms turned out to be very similar to those of the 2020 elections. Why should they pretend to care about the truth?
But there are others — even those outside of what would generally be considered the Trump orbit — who know what actually happened, but refused to speak out on it until they can get a nice book deal or favorable press coverage. These are the attempted heroes after the fact. And one of the most notable of these personalities is a failed local Rhode Island politician named Ken Block.
So who is Ken Block?
Well, in Rhode Island, he has been politically irrelevant and completely out of the public eye for almost a decade. In 2010, he earned 6% of the vote as a third party candidate for the Moderate Party. He then bailed out of the Moderate Party to run as a Republican in 2014, only to lose decisively to then-Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, the GOP frontrunner. From there, it is said locally that Block subsequently promised never to run for public office in Rhode Island again since its elections are allegedly “unfair and rigged.”
In other words, his political career — to quote Thomas Hobbes — was “nasty, brutish, and short.”
Block now runs a company called Simpatico Software Systems, an organization determined to “expose fraud” in our elections system and detect general “government waste” in Rhode Island. Despite his many public charades, and his almost comically technocratic approach to politics, he has discovered very little on either of these fronts. “The data” that he so often likes to quote to people never really bore him out.
But that did not stop Block in his quixotic quest for election fraud, much like it did not stop another man from railing against allegedly “unfair and rigged elections” in 2016 and 2020.
In fact, 2020 was the year that Block and Trump more directly crossed paths. In the wake of Trump’s 2020 election loss, the Trump campaign hired Block’s company to try to hunt out voter fraud. Block, according to his own accounts, took the job with “an open mind,” even though Trump had been laying the groundwork for his election denialism for months before the election even started. Like a wise person once said, “do not be so open-minded that your brains fall out.”
Naturally, after taking the job, Block found nothing to support the Trump campaign’s assertions, and the rest is history. And now Ken has gone on a TV speaking tour to promote his new book recounting how he “stood up” to Trump’s election lies.
Now, Earth to Ken: you did not stand up to anyone. You came out well after either January 6 or the lead-up to it. And you have said nothing we do not already know. 60+ court cases involving a number of conservative judges have thrown out these accusations altogether. People like Republican Georgia election official Gabe Sterling have been on the record for years debunking Trump’s election lies point-by-point. What does Ken Block offer to the conversation, except a new book that he can make a hefty profit off of?
But even beyond that, why did Block wait all this time to come out now? The Washington Post was the one to first break the news about Block’s company, having to fish him out before he chose to divulge anything. But why not speak up when it mattered the most? Why didn’t he go to the public immediately after finding nothing on behalf of the Trump campaign? Why didn’t he offer public testimony when the 1/6 Committee was established? Or when the January 6th hearings took place in 2022? Why wasn’t he worried enough about the lies and conspiracies to talk back then?
As Block himself admitted on Morning Joe, he was not under a non-disclosure agreement. He had no legal reason to hold his tongue until now. So, again, why did he have to wait until his book tour to come out with this information?
And then he wonders aloud why these conspiracies and falsehoods are still spreading. The truth should mean more than just 10 minutes of fame, a chunk of change, and a national profile. That’s not what serving the public interest is about.
